Bears left with beaten feeling

Colts' rushing can't be stopped

The numbers were staggering, the carnage exacted by the Indianapolis offense numbing.

"We definitely got beat up," Bears linebacker Lance Briggs conceded.

Edgerrin James ran for 204 yards on 23 carries and Peyton Manning tossed four touchdown passes before coach Tony Dungy pulled his stars in the fourth quarter.

"Did I see this coming? No," Bears coach Lovie Smith said. "Even the good defenses--and we are a good defense--will have games like this. You just don't want to have too many."

Complementing his deft spin move with speed and power, James had an 11-yard touchdown run and three runs of more than 25 yards.

"Missed assignments, missed tackles," Smith said after his defense was gouged for 275 rushing yards. "We're set up to stop the run, and it's the first thing we would like to do. But we weren't able to do it."

Dominic Rhodes took over for James in the fourth quarter and had 54 yards on nine carries.

"All the games we lost this year were the same story," said Briggs, who had a team-high 11 tackles and was a little sheepish after guaranteeing a Bears victory. "Either we're not in our gaps or we make mistakes. [The Colts] are going to have great balance when you can't stop the run."

The Bears' best chance to make a game of it came in the first quarter when Briggs nearly intercepted a Manning pass. Briggs saw 35 yards of open field between him and the north end zone and could have tied the game 7-7. But he failed to secure the football before he started running with it. The ball bounced out of his hands for an incomplete pass.

"I made a good read and I made a break on it," Briggs said. "I had it in my hands and was thinking touchdown. I couldn't hold on to it."

Briggs was asked if there were any positives.

"Yeah," he said, "it's over now. I think having a short week is good for memory loss. We've got to forget this. Good teams lose every once in a while, and we lost this one. We've got to move on and look forward to playing Dallas."

Rookie defensive tackle Tommie Harris, who had said he was not impressed with the Colts' offense, was credited with just two tackles. Harris said it was more a matter of the Bears playing poorly than the Colts playing great.

"The defense has to play well every week, and we did not," Harris said.

The Bears were without injured middle linebacker Brian Urlacher. And defensive end Alex Brown was credited with just one tackle.

Brown said the Colts "were good, but [Sunday] was a mixture of things. Their quarterback made plays. Their running back made plays. He bounced off tackles like it was nothing. We just didn't play well in any phase of the game."